Home > Cyrano de Bergerac Text > Act V, Scene V - Page 2

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ROXANE:

How well you read that letter! It's as if…

CYRANO:

[continuing to read] My life, my love, my jewel, my sweet! My heart has been yours in every beat!

[The shades of evening fall imperceptibly.]

ROXANE:

You read in such a voice! A voice I've heard somewhere before!

[She comes nearer very softly, without his perceiving it, passes behind his chair, and, noiselessly leaning over him, looks at the letter. The darkness deepens.]

CYRANO:

My heart has never left you. In this world and in the next, I am the one who loves you—

ROXANE:

[putting her hand on his shoulder] How can you read? It's too dark to see! [He starts, turns, sees her close to him. Suddenly alarmed, he holds his head down. Then in the dusk, which has now completely enfolded them, she speaks, very slowly, with clasped hands.] And, for fourteen years now, he has played the part of the kind old friend who comes to laugh and chat.

CYRANO:

Roxane!

ROXANE:

It was you!

CYRANO:

No, Roxane, no!

ROXANE:

I should have guessed it each time you said my name!

CYRANO:

No, it was not I!

ROXANE:

It was you!

CYRANO:

I swear!

ROXANE:

I see through the whole generous lie! The letters—you!

CYRANO:

No!

ROXANE:

The sweet, mad love-words! All yours!

CYRANO:

No!

ROXANE:

That voice that thrilled me in the night! You!

CYRANO:

I swear you're mistaken.

ROXANE:

The soul—it was your soul!

CYRANO:

I loved you not!

ROXANE:

You did love me!

CYRANO:

No! It was he!

ROXANE:

You loved me!

CYRANO:

[in a weakening voice] No!

ROXANE:

You're faltering now. You're denying it less strongly.

CYRANO:

No, my sweet love, I never loved you!

ROXANE:

Ah! So many long-dead things are being reborn now! Why did you keep your silence all these fourteen years when the tears on this letter, which he never wrote, are your tears?

CYRANO:

[holding out the letter to her] The blood is his.

ROXANE:

Why, then, have you broken your noble silence today?

CYRANO:

Why?…

[LE BRET and RAGUENEAU enter running.]

• unnoticeably, undetectably

1. Notes
2. Reading Pointers for Sharper Insights
3. Dedication
4. Dramatis Personae
5. Act I
   1. A Performance at the Hotel de Bourgogne
   2. Scene I
   3. Scene II
   4. Scene III
   5. Scene IV
   6. Scene V
   7. Scene VI
   8. Scene VII
6. Act II
   1. The Poet's Eating-House
   2. Scene I
   3. Scene II
   4. Scene III
   5. Scene IV
   6. Scene V
   7. Scene VI
   8. Scene VII
   9. Scene VIII
   10. Scene IX
   11. Scene X
   12. Scene XI
7. Act III
   1. Roxane's Kiss
   2. Scene I
   3. Scene II
   4. Scene III
   5. Scene IV
   6. Scene V
   7. Scene VI
   8. Scene VII
   9. Scene VIII
   10. Scene IX
   11. Scene X
   12. Scene XI
   13. Scene XII
8. Act IV
   1. The Cadets of Gascony
   2. Scene I
   3. Scene II
   4. Scene III
   5. Scene IV
   6. Scene V
   7. Scene VI
   8. Scene VII
   9. Scene VIII
   10. Scene IX
   11. Scene X
9. Act V
   1. Cyrano's Gazette
   2. Scene I
   3. Scene II
   4. Scene III
   5. Scene IV
   6. Scene V
   7. Scene VI
10. Copyright